


Thin Ice + Hockey Stick

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Series: Wunderkind 0.5 [6]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Falling Through Ice, Gen, Hockey, Pre series Wunderkind, Thin Ice, Whump Advent Calendar 2020, but can be read as stand-alone, desi whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: Desi doesn’t hear the soft creaking pops over the excited screaming of her teammates. It’s when her skate jerks and catches her off balance, almost knocking her down, that she notices something is wrong.The ice should be frozen thick, but this lake must be spring-fed. And she’s skated too close to the spring’s flow.
Series: Wunderkind 0.5 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947766
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Thin Ice + Hockey Stick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [altschmerzes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/gifts).



> A little pre-series teenager Desi for the Whump Advent Calendar!
> 
> Special SPECIAL thanks to altschmerzes for sharing their hockey knowledge and the beta on this!

Desi tightens her skate laces and steps out onto the ice. Half her teammates are already out here. Rio and Luci and Abigail and Aiyah are practicing, slapping a puck back and forth in warmup drills, and Julia is assembling their makeshift goals. Her father’s hardware store gave them the PVC pipe at a discount, and she’s also got the truck that can haul it all around in between games.

“Dez!” Abi yells, skating away from the drills to give her a one-armed hug. Abi is her fellow defense player and they’ve been a rock-solid partnership for two years now. Working with her has become like working with an extension of herself. Both of them have learned how to work with each others’ strengths as well as possible, and they barely need to communicate on the ice anymore. It’s the kind of partnership playing defense is supposed to be, and Desi feels lucky that she and Abi were able to work together. The other defense pair, Yvonne and Ange, were already a team when Abi joined, and Desi had been being shuttled as a backup between them since there wasn’t another really qualified d-player. It had been weird, feeling like the literal third wheel in a tight-knit team. Then Abi showed up, and the minute they saw her make a save before the goalie could even locate the puck in their zone she’d been moved into defense and Desi got a permanent partner. 

Abi’s hair is out of her usual thick double braids today, frizzy and floating out from under her cap like a stormcloud. She’s always given Desi the impression of being a force of nature, an unstoppable enforcer who’s also capable of striking as fast as a bolt of lightning when needed. She’s a year younger than Desi, but in a lot of ways she feels like an older sister. She’s confident in her own skin, holds her head high no matter what anyone says about her, and she’s absolutely fearless in going after exactly what she wants in life, whether that’s a degree in astrophysics or a place on the ice. 

They’re all here because they’re determined. They’re the ones who, for one reason or another, can’t play with a real team. Kids whose schools don’t have a hockey team (or not a girls’ hockey team, at least half of them are here for that reason), who can’t afford the kind of gear that their school requires them to provide for themselves, or who just prefer playing for fun to the competitiveness of organized sports. 

Desi tries not to think about how this will be her last year playing on the local ponds. With any luck, she’ll be on her college team, but it won’t be the same. Nothing will replace the feeling of bundling up and tying a red or blue handkerchief around her arm to mark which team she’s on today. But things have changed already. And nothing will replace Mrs. Ryker, the farmer’s widow who let them skate on her land and brought them hot chocolate with real peppermint leaves from her potted windowsill plants when they were finished playing. 

But then three months ago she slipped on ice outside her front door and broke her hip. And her son swept in, sending her to the hospital and a nursing home after that, taking control and selling the farm out from under her to pay the bills.

Now they don’t dare ask the new owners if they’ll let two dozen rowdy highschoolers play hockey all over their pond every weekend. But Rio’s family has a smaller pond they can use for the last few games before the winter is over. It’s not ideal, there isn’t enough room to set up a full regulation field, and there’s a large piece of land that juts up almost halfway across, but it will do. 

She jumps into the drills with the others until the rest of their teammates show up. They have enough to have almost two full teams. Her own has three forwards, while the one Yvonne and Ange play on has only two. But they make up for that by being the two older and more skilled members. Desi’s team has the rookies. 

Nina, Hue, and Amani are like the little sisters she doesn’t have. She looks out for them with the kind of ferocity her cousin always protected her with in school. Whether they’re on the ice or off, they know they can ask her for anything and she’ll do whatever she can to help. 

The teams line up and pick their player to face off for puck drop. Desi cheers when Hue gets the puck and gets them the first play. Hue is tiny, but she’s fast, with the kind of balance Desi recognizes from ballet classes. 

She doesn’t dance anymore, but she knows she’s still using the skills she learned. Still light on her feet and able to shift her weight in a fraction of a second to keep from falling. It’s saved her out here more than once.  _ Who knew ballet would be helpful for hockey? _ She knows a lot of people who are shocked to hear she plays hockey instead of having transitioned to figure skating, which to them sounds like the more logical choice. But she likes the teamwork on the ice in hockey. She doesn’t want to be competing against everyone else, and the partnership and trust she has with Abi is just as good as anything she could have with a figure-skating teammate. Besides, occasionally she gets to fight people. That got her in trouble in ballet.

They’re almost halfway through the game when it happens. Both sides have one point to their names and everyone is tiring. Amani is trying to sneak in for a goal, and when Desi sees Lu go for her, she doesn’t hesitate to get in between. The impact sends both of them outside the play lines, but no one really cares to make that a serious problem out here.

Except the lake itself.

Amani, her shot now open, scores, and everyone gets excited, even Lu, who’s pumping her fist and cheering. Out here, they’re all friends, even if they are competitive. They’re just here to get good at the thing they love and have a good time. 

Desi doesn’t hear the soft creaking pops over the excited screaming of her teammates. It’s when her skate jerks and catches her off balance, almost knocking her down, that she notices something is wrong. 

The ice should be frozen thick, but this lake must be spring-fed. And she’s skated too close to the spring’s flow. 

The rotten ice catches at her skates, clinging like vicious frozen fingers and stopping her from escaping. She can’t get away fast enough to avoid falling through, and there’s no time left to drop and spread her weight. That thought flashes through her head only a split second before the ice gives way. 

The cold is an instant shock that steals her breath and tries to freeze her limbs. It’s like the water has a malevolent mind of its own and wants her to sink down to the depths and drown. The lake can’t be much more than eight feet deep, but that’s enough.

If she can keep a grip on her stick, she can keep her head above water and someone can pull her out. She shakes her rapidly stiffening hair out of her eyes and clenches her numbing fingers around the thin wood, hoping her freezing gloves will lock them in place. 

Her teammates are already shouting instructions. There’s water in her ears and it’s coming out blurry, but she can tell Abi and Rio are yelling at the rookies to stay back. Both of them have fallen through and pulled out teammates before, they’re good at this.

Abi slithers across the ice on her stomach, spreading out her weight. Desi can feel more than hear the ice cracking under her too, but it’s small cracks. Not enough to send Abi through.

“Dez! Can you move your stick so I can reach it?” There’s an edge of worry to Abi’s voice, but she’s staying remarkably calm. Desi nods slowly and forces her stiff, numb arms to move and tilt the stick’s end into Abi’s grip. Abi keeps hold of it, slowly backing up, and Desi frees one of her hands to help push her up onto the stronger ice. She doesn’t stand up until she’s well away from the hole. No sense in taking chances.

Abi rushes over the second Desi lets go of the stick and gets an arm under hers to help keep her upright. Desi’s whole body feels stiff and frozen, her elbows and knees refusing to properly bend. She stumbles off the ice and through the snow toward her car, wobbling on her skate blades. She’s grateful for Abi supporting her, otherwise she’d probably trip and fall. She’s shivering so hard it sort of feels like she’s going to fall apart at her creaking joints. 

She never goes anywhere in the winter without a blanket, a flashlight, road salt, thick boots, and extra clothes packed in her car’s trunk. Ma and Ba taught her how to be safe on the roads in the winters, something people taught them when they first arrived. She can’t imagine what it was like to have been born in Vietnam and move to this frigid world of winter and ice and snow that seems to last half of the year in some way. This is the only home she’s ever known, and still it bites and claws. 

She claws her keys out of her pocket and hands them to Abi, who immediately opens the trunk and pulls out the army-green duffel and the grey wool blanket, setting both on the trunk when she closes it again. 

Desi’s too cold to care about anything but getting  _ warm _ as she rips off her stiff, frozen clothes with fingers that she can see but not feel moving. The zipper on her jacket has frozen shut and she doesn’t bother with it, just pulling it over her head and throwing it to the ground. She tugs off her wet upper layers and wraps the blanket around her shoulders, pulling open the car’s driver door, grateful she’s left it unlocked today. 

She sits down in the open door of the Mustang and lets Abi untie her skates. There’s no way her frozen fingers will be able to manage that and she needs to get them off her feet so she can get them warm too. She pulls off her heavy winter pants and the thermals underneath them, standing up just long enough to wrap the blanket down around her legs. 

Abi peels off her soaked socks and Desi jams her bare feet into the thick, fleece-lined winter boots her friend holds up. 

Now that she’s on her way to being okay, she looks up, pushing her ice-caked hair out of her face with blue-shaded fingers. Lu and Amani are hovering, both of them looking worried and guilty, the rest of the team behind them. 

“Sorry I shoved you over there,” Lu says. 

“You didn’t know that was a bad spot,” Desi says, and her voice sounds strange, there’s still water in her ears and her breathing is wobbly. Her chest feels like it’s being squeezed in and she has to focus on taking slow, even breaths even now, when she’s dry and well out of the water. She’s still shivering almost convulsively, which she knows is a good sign. 

Her toes and fingers ache as feeling slowly starts to return, a sharp throbbing that makes her miss the numbness. She knows this is a good thing too, but it  _ hurts. _

Abi reaches across her to turn on the ignition and the heater. Warm air blasts out and Desi leans in a little closer, letting the warmth thaw her face and the hair that begins dripping water down her cheeks.

“Slide over and I’ll drive you back to the house,” Abi says, and Desi works her way over into the passenger seat. She can just see Rio’s family’s house over the hill, and she trusts Abi to get the car up the two-track lane to it. She leans back against the seat and closes her eyes, letting the warmth of her car and her friends’ concern sink into her bones deeper than the cold ever could. 


End file.
